Running Time of 'Watchmen' Shortened

The director and producer team behind 'Watchmen', Zack and Deborah Snyder, reveal that more than five minutes of the action fantasy movie's previous running time has been cut out.

"Watchmen" won't be having a 2 hours and 43 minutes running time anymore. Coming up with the latest update on the film's length, director Zack Snyder and his producer wife, Deborah, have stated that the running time of the comic adaptation movie has been shortened, though the final length of the movie has not yet been approved by the studio.

Addressing the matter in a telephone interview with Sci Fi Wire on November 19, Deborah said, "We're getting really close. We're at two hours and 35 minutes." Zack then added, "The movie's pretty long...compared to '300', which was an hour and 58 minutes. The director's cut [of Watchmen] is about three hours and 10 minutes long. It has even more than the theatrical version, as far as the detail that gets even closer to the graphic novel."

Apart from revealing the current running time, Zack also opened up about the incorporating of a 20-minute animated adaptation of "The Black Freighter" into the movie. "The Black Freighter version of the movie that we're working on - which has the ins and outs of the Black Freighter comic book woven through it, with an animated version of the Black Freighter - will be about three hours and 40 minutes," he explained. "So there's a huge epic version of Watchmen, which will probably come out after the movie's theatrical release, for hardcore [fans]."

Adapted from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic book series, "Watchmen" follows superhero-turned-vigilante Rorschach as he investigates the murder of his former colleague and discovers much more than a simple homicide case. Starring Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup and Matthew Goode as other costumed superheroes in an alternate 1985 America, this Warner Bros. film has been enlisted for U.S. theatrical release on March 6, 2009.